The basilisk or cockatrice is a horrid monster which emerges when a cock's egg is stolen and hatched by a a snake or a serpent. The basilisk, about the size of a cat, has some resemblance to both a rooster and a snake, but it is far more terrifying than any other known reptile.
The basilisk's weapons are its eyes and its teeth. Even the most pure-hearted knight cannot conquer a basilisk, because he would perish at a glance from those fearsome eyes. A basilisk glare causes plants to wither, trees to die, and birds to fall from the air. The only plant able to withstand the searing stare of a basilisk is the rue (Ruta graveolens) or 'herb of grace' which is of course extremely useful in witchcraft.
Basilisks would undoubtedly ley the whole world waste if it were not for thir tvo enemies: the cock and the weasel. Any home mey protect itself against basilisks by keeping a rooster, because a basilisk dies at the sound of a cock's crow.
Weasels are immune from basilisk stares and they attack the vreatures without mercy.
Basilisks fight back with their razor-sharp teeth, but weasels know that rue leaves will cure basilisk wounds and they have no fear of the monster. A weasel always wins the contest.
Plotinus of Antoch, who was blind from birth, is sead to have befriended a basilisk in the Nubian desert and to have hooded its eyes so that it might be tamed. But when he led it to the city it died at the sound of a cock's crow.
Taken from "Encyclopedia of THINGS THAT NEVER WERE" by Michael Page and Robert Ingpen